4 months ago

4 months ago

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4 months ago

Morning Five: 06.10.10

Is it just us, or does this feel like the busiest June in college basketball history? Between Wooden’s passing, every college coach of note contemplating a chance to coach LeBron James, the insanity of conference realignment, and the endless discussion of violations and sanctions, you’d think that we were in the middle of January. Whew.

Would Tom Izzo realistically leave his successful program at Michigan State to take a shot at coaching LeBron James in the NBA? According to various reports last night, the answer is yes. The MSU coach will visit Cleveland Thursday and his Spartan players already have a sense that he might be leaving for this opportunity, the latest of many in his career. Reportedly Cleveland is offering Izzo twice his current salary of $3M per year, and of course, the opportunity to coach the player widely regarded as the greatest of his generation for the next decade. This is a very interesting dilemma for the fiery Michigander.

Get excited now, kids — the SEC/Big East Invitational matchups were announced yesterday. The headliner is that Kentucky will play Notre Dame in Louisville’s Freedom Hall after Seton Hall and Arkansas tip it off in the first game on December 8. Three days later, Rutgers will face Auburn and Pitt will host Tennessee in the Consol Energy Center in Pittsburgh. Contain yourselves.

As much as we like to poke fun at Digger Phelps in his role as ‘analyst’ on ESPN, we’re happy to hear that he’s recovering nicely after having prostate cancer surgery in recent days. Quick question, though — why did Digger choose to have this surgery at the University of Washington in Seattle? We thought he was pretty much an east coast guy.